Wednesday, January 1, 2014

As I type I am sitting in the dark on a hard chair in a corner of a very small and variably hot/cold motel room. I shift positions so as to rotate between my rear end falling asleep and my tail bone aching. (I am an old woman.) Abby and Reid have already conked out. James is singing "Angels we have heard on high" in his pack n' play, Grace and Eliza have collectively used the bathroom 5 times since we "put them to bed" an hour ago. There's no one to talk to, no TV shows to veg in front of, and no projects to work on. This is apparently what it takes for me to sit down and blog.

We are on our way home from a wonderful Christmas and New Year's trip spent with both of our families. (We'd hoped to get home today, but between the snow and the traffic, we decided not to push our luck.) We spent eight days with my family in Provo, then 3 days with Reid's in Salt Lake. Yet the highlight might just be the few hours we spent at this little motel.

Hopefully I'll get around to blogging about our trip--I no longer make such promises. But for now I have at least enough wherewithall to cut and paste a letter that we gave to Reid's parents as part of our gift this year. It's a summary of the year's events, written largely by Reid (I take credit for anything clever). I've deleted photos that are already on this blog, and added more than was necessary.

ALLRED FAMILY SUMMARY 2013

2013 will
forever be remembered as the year of the budget and the home search. In an effort to payoff our student loans and because we're not crazy enough, we lived off an extremely tight budget this year. Despite this belt tightening, we spent much of the year looking for a
new house. Makes sense, right? Alas, our dream (well Emily's dream) of starting a hobby farm was not to come true this year. Fifty-three showings and two offers later, we’re
still at our same house. Luckily it is a wonderful house with amazing neighbors. If only it had more sunlight, garden space, ditch rights, a pasture, a chicken coop, fruit trees and a barn we'd stay there forever. Even with the budget cuts and the rejected offers, we still had a wonderful and eventful year.

January. Abby turned six and celebrated her birthday with her friend Maya at Chucky Cheese. Emily rose to the challenge of the budget and
started couponing (which she despises) and mastered frugal fun. Our favorite date was
playing racquet ball at the rec center.
All the girls did gymnastics at a local gym (at different times
throughout the year) and really enjoyed it. Emily cooked beans from scratch and took on a piano student to pay for their classes.

February. We welcomed our first family pet--Blue Jay the Beta fish. Emily hosted book club and made the most decadent chocolate coconut scones. Emily also made it to the post office to mail two 10" ponytails to Locks of Love. Fortunately hair does not go bad, as these ponytails were lopped off of Grace and Emily's heads in late 2011. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Reid went to
Washington, D.C. for the annual LDS lawyers conference. Emily did not attend. Justice Clarence Thomas and Elder Jeffery
Holland spoke. How romantic.

March. Reid turned 34. When Emily gave him a birthday kiss, the
girls surely said, “Let me be the first to say: Eeewww!” (This is one of their favorite responses to
their parents kissing.) In March we were
moved into a different ward/congregation thanks to a boundary change. We've met some wonderful people and made new friends. Also this month Abby and Grace were coerced volunteered to perform at their
school talent show. Practice apparently
does not always make perfect. Someday they’ll be able to talk about it
without crying.

April. Grace turned eight! For her birthday, we had someone come over
and manicure her and her friends’ nails and make cotton candy. Days later we traveled to Washington, D.C. to
attend Aunt Karen and (new) Uncle Tommy G.’s wedding. It was awesome and the temple grounds were
beautiful. The girls were thrilled to
announce, “now we have three uncle
Toms.” While there, we had lots of fun
with the Staceys and spent some time at Gettysburg and the D.C. monuments and museums.

May.
Grace was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. Grandpa Ashworth,
Aunt Julia, Uncle Nathan, Grandma and Grandpa Allred and Karen and Tom Gadberry
were all there. As were a lot of Grace’s
friends, including her school teacher.
It was a wonderful day. We are so
proud of Grace.

June. Emily and the kids
went to Boise, ID to help Aunt Jana and Uncle Tom with their new twin babies. They had fun, but Emily still has not
recovered from the 12-hour drive. Reid stayed home and worked. He biked to and from work (12 miles) all
summer and enjoyed being fit (and was a little mortified to look back at pictures
of himself during law school). James turned 2. He requested an "Elmo happy cake." I invited a few little boy his age over, and he cried the whole time. It was his party, afterall. We also
took lots of family bike rides and enjoyed trips to the zoo during the summer.

July.
Emily turned 35. We celebrated
her birthday with friends and BBQ, after we walked as Mormon pioneers in the
Fourth of July parade. We also went on a
family campout with friends, hoping for a relaxing mountain getaway. Instead we got a visit from the police and
fire departments, had to run to town to buy propane, and were up all night in a
wind storm—the tent blew over, pack ‘n play and all, in the middle of the
night. In spite of this, the dutch-oven
food (courtesy of Reid) was amazing and will keep us coming back for more
sleepless campouts.

August. By summer’s
end, Emily had run three 5Ks. We had fun
as a family at the BYU-sponsored event she ran in August. Grace started 3rd grade (with Ms. Mercer for
the 3rd year out of the last four). Abby
started 1st grace (with Ms. Tash). And
Eliza is in pre-school (with Ms. Michelle). Eliza turned five. She had a small Rainbow party that she insisted take place "during school and James’ nap time." Clever girl had her mom all to herself for the whole party! Grace and Abby played soccer again this fall (in addition to playing during the
spring). They play well. Reid coached Abby’s team—for the last
season. Reid’s cheerleading skills are
no longer cutting it as the league becomes more competitive. Tom and Karen, in all their newlywed
splendor, visited us on their way back to Utah from St. Louis.

September. Emily had a well-deserved and fairly frugal weekend get-a-way
with some girl friends. Reid also had a well-deserved get-a-way...though his was of the less thrifty variety. He spent a weekend in Utah with
the Darringtons playing in the Strainer Head golf tournament, which he
won. The day before, he rented a bike and rode all over Deer
Valley ski resort with Emily’s brother, Nathan.
After the tournament, he went to the BYU’s vs Texas game, which BYU won! Emily encouraged him to sell a golf club to pay for it all. The kids survived his weekend away. He almost did not.

October. The girls sang in the church primary program. They are talented singers. And Abby especially knew ALL the songs and kept
the primary on track. In fact, when Abby was in
charge of Family Night activity before the program, she had us all practice the
songs. More than one person has referred
to the primary choir as “Abby and her back-up singers.” We visited a local pumpkin patch with some
friends and went roller skating, which especially Grace loved. Reid and Emily attended a western-themed
fundraiser dressed in cowboy attire—a first for both. We danced together as Lone Star performed live
the very song we danced to at our wedding—Amazed. Also amazing was borrowing ALL of our kids Halloween costumes. Thank you Lindsay and Gina--the budget and Emily's broken sewing machine thank you.

November. All the girls continue to excel in
school Grace’s favorite subject is
reading. Abby’s favorite subject is
math. And Eliza’s favorite subject is show and tell. James had a verbal
outburst this year. He began the year
with a vocabulary of about 20 words and is ending the year with about 2000 and
a repertoire of more than 100 songs. He also mastered the art of giving glares. We
cooked our Thanksgiving turkey in the smoker this year. It was amazingly juicy. We also made our own butter. It was amazingly buttery. Speaking of crazy culinary ideas, we didn’t buy sandwich
bread once this year, thanks to Emily’s delicious homemade bread from freshly
ground wheat. (The budget says thank
you.)

December. It has been a month of crafts. Emily finished James’ Christmas stocking—she has
cross-stitched a stocking for each family member. The girls have also started cross-stitching. Eliza has enjoyed it the most. We wondered how to make Christmas special while on this crazy budget, but things just worked out. Emily finished
knitting a sweater her mom started years ago for her little brother Jared, (whose name she had this year) and crocheted and sewed stuffed animals for the kids. She made reusable paper towels for sisters-in-law. The girls gave most of their dress-ups to their two neices (one on each side). Emily won an Amazon gift card by taking some surveys. And multiple friends gave us some awesome toys they were getting rid of. In other words, the season was filled with Christmas Miracles and is one we'll never forget.

If 2014 is half as good to us as 2013 was, we'll be as happy as a pig in an orchard. And if things go as we hope, we'll end this year actually owning a pig...and an orchard...and maybe a goat...and some chickens...and a huge garden...with ditch rights. :)